This year, Merton and Sutton boroughs are paired together to work with Artists in Residence, Bernadette Russell and Alice Frecknall, for SPINE Festival 2023. Below are details on how to contact participant libraries and more information about the artists. We’ll be adding to this page later in March with events that are happening during the festival.
Merton
Website: see what’s on
Twitter: @MertonLibraries
Facebook: @mertonlibraries
Event
Thu 13 Apr – 13.30-15.00
Kindness Land with Bernadette Russell and Alice Frecknall
Come and find out about Kindness Land. We’ll have fun making characters, playing games, and writing poems and stories about Kindness Land together. Afterwards, we’ll hide what we’ve created inside books in your library so other people can find and share in our messages of kindness.
Location: West Barnes Library Station Rd, New Malden KT3 6JF
This event will be repeated on the same day at 15.30-17.00
Tue 25 Apr – 16.30-17.30
Make a Kindness Jar with Bee Creative Art Hub
Creative workshop based on the book How Full is Your Bucket? For Kids by Tom Rath. Children will create kindness jars by drawing and colouring them. They will also make a big jar of kindness that will be left at the library for everyone to write kindness notes.
Location: South Lodge Avenue Pollards Hill CR4 1LT
Wed 26 Apr – 16.30-17.30
Make a Kindness Jar with Bee Creative Art Hub
Creative workshop based on the book How Full is Your Bucket? For Kids by Tom Rath. Children will create kindness jars by drawing and colouring them. They will also make a big jar of kindness that will be left at the library for everyone to write kindness notes.
Location: Mitcham Library 157 London Road Mitcham CR4 2YR
SPIN Show | Fri 21 Apr – 10.30-11.15 – with Repeatbeat, Zohab Zee Khan and Eileen Gbagbo
Sutton
Website: see what’s on
Twitter: @SuttonLibraries
Facebook: @suttonlibrarieslondon
Events
Tue 11 Apr – 13.00-14.30 and 15.00-16.30
Kindness Land with Bernadette Russell and Alice Frecknall
Come and find out about Kindness Land. We’ll have fun making characters, playing games, and writing poems and stories about Kindness Land together. Afterward, we’ll hide what we’ve created inside books in your library so other people can find and share in our messages of kindness.
Location: Sutton Central Library (Community Space), St Nicholas Way, Sutton, SM1 1EA
SPIN Show | Fri 21 Apr – 13.30-14.15 – with Repeatbeat, Zohab Zee Khan and Eileen Gbagbo
Artists in Residence
Bernadette Russell
Artform: performance/theatre/storytelling
Bernadette is an author, storyteller, and theatremaker. She’s the author of five books about kindness, wonder, and creative activism. Her sixth book “Radical Kindness”, will be published in 2024 (Elliott and Thompson).
As a storyteller, she works in schools, museums, theatres and outdoors telling funny, magical and provocative stories about animals, plants, people and place. She’s currently storyteller for Trees for Cities, Butser Ancient Farm and the Southbank Centre.
Bernadette has previously been ‘writer in residence’ for Lesnes Abbey Wood, Lewisham Libraries, Talliston House and Gardens, Bexley Book Buzz, and Frequency Festival. She has created shows for organisations including National Theatre, Royal Albert Hall, and English Heritage. She delivers creative workshops for children, young people, and elders throughout the UK.
Connect with Bernadette:
Website www.bernadetterussell.com
Twitter @betterussell
Instagram @bernadetterussell
Alice Frecknell
Artform: poetry/spoken work
Alice Frecknall is a poet, short fiction writer, and fine artist. Her debut poetry collection, Somewhere Something is Burning, was published by Out-Spoken Press (2021).
Her writing has been widely anthologised, including in fourteen poems, bath magg, Butcher’s Dog, and The Stinging Fly, and was shortlisted for the Out-Spoken Prize for Poetry 2019 and 2022 and the Lightship International Short Story Prize.
Alice has an MA in Creative Writing, is a Roundhouse Poetry Collective alumna, and member of the UniSlam Post-Emerging Cohort.
Connect with Alice:
Website www.alicefrecknall.com
Twitter @alice_frecknall
Instagram @alice_frecknall